> I find I'm feeling much better overall, not worse, if I take the bike somewhere even in uncomfortable weather, and it turns out it's more fun as well, more often than not.

I'm lacking words to describe how I feel reading the same comment from many people online. I too felt weird seeing how much more peaceful and healthier simple bike commute made me. I remember coming home sweaty and running across angry car drivers pissed to wait for 3 seconds more than necessary in the comfort of their seat, while me doing all these efforts .. all calm, even joyful.

Same for food, it's hard to unplug from all sweet processed food, but after a month you realize your body doesn't need it. less but better food, helps sleep too..

Totally agree regarding biking, walking, trees, mountains, and will add lakes. Though it does only lightly touch on social structures of traditional societies, you may enjoy reading "The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter" by Joseph Henrich. I also found classic texts of social and political anthropology to be very worthwhile for understanding human societies. Ted Lewellen's "Political Anthropology: An Introduction" is a good starting point.

Cooked food is easier to digest. The discovery of cooking is what allowed early hominids to grow larger brains (which have higher calorie demands) and become modern humans.

Yes, college aged men who aren’t in a relationship are avoiding pursuing one because they’re thinking about whether or not they’ll be able to afford a house some day. It definitely has nothing to do with social media and dating apps breaking human interaction.

> predominantly caused by telling women they should prioritise education and career over children

Who is “telling them that”? Society by allowing them to open a checking account? Women’s suffrage? The reality is that other than the most privileged, a modern family can’t afford to function without both parents working. I assume you’re for raising the minimum wage to allow a family to run on a single income with multiple children? Or your solution is to send us back to the dark ages and remove womens rights?

> enabling the invention of the single mother who survives on government largesse.

There’s literally nobody who has kids as a single mother with the goal of raising them on welfare, that might be the single most ridiculous statement in this thread.

> Separating church and state appears to be contributing at least to some extent.

The Russian Orthodox Church is government sponsored. How’s their birth rate going?

Caused by allowing women the same choices that men have. Would you rather they not have the choice?

>Is there any evidence that the fall in birth rates is caused by humans having produced reality TV shows?

No, but there's is evidence that the fall in birth rates is affected by all the content slop people spend their times consuming instead of talking to one another and fucking one another... and the ideas that slop puts into their heads are even worse...

Why not choose GDP? Or meat consumption? You could choose any pair of correlated variables.

Using “The invention of the single mother” is a poor way of explaining away Bad Marriages and relationships.

Also, there was a UN report which came out that showed that a major factor behind people choosing not to have children, globally, is money.

Maybe think for a second from the perspective of a couple or woman who WANT to have children. The problems they face in today's economy where both people need to work full-time just to survive are huge, and it seems even crazier to add the time and money costs of a child, let alone several.

The way to change all of that has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with economic and labor policy

Society decided it was OK to have the top 1% control 27% or all wealth and the top 10% control 60%, and allow companies to pay wages so low that a person working full-time cannot even get out of poverty, so 25%+ of the workers at the largest employer qualify for food benefits (and the employer even gives employees seminars how to get benefits), while the leaders/owners of those companies rake in more billions every year.

Society decided it was OK to make sure health care is expensive, incomplete, and bankrupting for any unexpected event.

Society decided it was the mothers who are responsible for all childcare and provide only minimum assistance for critical needs like prenatal care, and day-care.

You want more babies? Make just a few changes

Change requirements so corporations are required to compensate their employees merely the way the original US minimum wage was specified (including in the 1956 Republican Party Platform): So a single person working full-time will earn enough to support a household of four including housing (mortgage/rent), food, healthcare, and education. Recognize that the companies trying to exploit their workers by paying less so their full-time employees need govt benefits to feed themselves are the ones exploiting welfare, and do not have a viable business model, they have an exploitation model.

Add making healthcare sufficient and affordable for all, including children and support for daycare and the time and effort to raise children.

Change those things, and instead of a couple looking at making an already hugely insecure future even more insecure by having children, they would see an opportunity to confidently embark on building a family without feeling like one misfortune or layoff could put them all in the street.

> I’d say there is better evidence to suggest the fall in birth rates is predominantly caused by telling women they should prioritise education and career over children

I'd say the evidence is inconclusive and could just as easily be explained by not telling men they needed to take on their share of the burden at home now that their women were no longer trapped at home doing unpaid, manual labor all day.

Instead, we're letting people say "gay sex includes giving a woman an orgasm instead of a pregnancy" (an actual thing I've heard a right-wing influencer say right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH6uydPCX8Q ) and encouraging men to be more selfish and anti-woman.

Also who cares about a fall in birth rates? We need a fall in birth rates. Above replacement rate is mathematically unstable in the long term.

When people complain bout "a fall in birth rates," they're a mix of capitalists who need their profits to ever increase, and white supremacists who mean WHITE people need to have more babies because society is too BROWN now.

We're about to have hella unemployment from too many people for too few jobs. We need fewer people.